TVUG Presentation - May 13th, 2008 

TVUG President wrote in an e-mail to the Tech Valley .NET Users Group membership.  Please join us...

This month, we welcome Chris Bowen, Microsoft's Developer Evangelist for the Northeast, as he dazzles us with GUI bliss. If you're getting started with XAML, WPF, and Silverlight, or just interested in the topic, make your way down to see us on Tuesday, May 13th.

Next-Generation UX Development with Silverlight and WPF

Speaker: Chris Bowen, Developer Evangelist - Northeast, Microsoft
When: Tuesday May 13th, 2008 - 6:30-9PM
Where: VersaTrans Solutions, Latham, NY

In this talk, we'll introduce the concepts behind both WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight. You'll see what they do, how they're related, when you might use them, and how to develop applications using them. You'll see some of the interesting ways customers are using WPF and Silverlight today to improve the user experience of their applications. After covering the concepts, we'll dive into the practical developer story, using Visual Studio 2008 to show how to use these declarative, XAML-based approaches to create high-end effects without the high-end effort.

BIO:
Chris Bowen (http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen) is Microsoft's Developer Evangelist for the Northeast. A software architect and engineer with over 16 years of experience, Chris joined Microsoft after holding senior architect and developer positions at companies such as Monster, VistaPrint, Staples, and IDX Systems and consulting on web presence and eCommerce projects with others. He is coauthor of "Essential Windows Communication Foundation" [Addison-Wesley] and "Professional Visual Studio 2005 Team System" [WROX]. He specializes in application architecture and building highly-scalable transactional web systems and holds an M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Management Information Systems, both from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Chris Bowen (From the MSDN Flash Newsletter.)

From the Editor

Hello, Northeast developers and architects.

We've had a lot of great events in our region lately, and have plenty more to come. I'd like to congratulate Griff Townsend and Andy Badera for a great job organizing the Albany, NY area's first code camp. The Tech Valley Code Camp was a great success, and work is already underway on v2.0 in the fall. ...

© 2008 Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft Developer Network

Well I missed Tech Valley Code Camp due to family obligations, namely vacation for the first time in 2 years. :)  These opportunities can become more available with more and more people attending the Tech Valley .NET Users Group meetings every 2nd Tuesday of the month (not July/Aug) to show interest and let people know what they want to see, hear, and do.  Besides pure code, you can learn about topics interesting to architects and developers.

Chris Bowen (From the MSDN Flash Newsletter.)

From the Editor

Hello developers across the northeast. Here's the latest news for our corner of the country.

As I write this, Code Camp 9 hasn't happened yet, but I want to thank everyone who volunteered to help make Code Camp what I'm sure was a great event. In particular, I want to thank our many speakers who shared expertise and the contributing companies who donated giveaways to support the event.

If you missed Code Camp 9 and live in the Albany, NY area, you can attend the Tech Valley Code Camp on April 19. 

© 2008 Microsoft Corporation

Don't miss the TVUG (Tech Valley .NET Users Group) meeting tonight...

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0: A Platform For Building Custom Applications

Speaker: Alberto Gemin, Account Manager, Infusion, Development
When: Tuesday April 8, 2008 - 6:30-9PM
Where: VersaTrans Solutions, Latham, NY

With its latest release, Microsoft Dynamics CRM is aiming to function as a flexible, robust platform for building applications that can help meet the unique needs of many business groups. This technical presentation will be composed of three parts: a brief overview of CRM concepts, a presentation of the Dynamics CRM 4.0 application focusing on architectural and development aspects as well as new features, and a drill down into application design areas, such as User Interface Management, Business Logic Design and Application Data Modeling. The session’s goal is to provide insights into the possible benefits of using a platform like Microsoft Dynamics CRM to jumpstart application building efforts.

Bio
Alberto Gemin is an account manager at Infusion Development in New York, focusing on State & Local Government and CRM. He started his career in Italy in the world of TSO, CICS, IMS and COBOL, but he soon moved to Sweden, where he worked at Ericsson’s European Research Labs. He designed real-time operating systems and device drivers, and learned a lot about multi-threading and Unix. He moved on to Accenture in France, where he became involved in CRM with Daimler-Chrysler‘s pan-European implementation of Siebel. After three years at Innoveer in London as a senior architect implementing EAI solutions for CRM systems, at Infusion he found the opportunity to expand his experience with a wide range of architectural challenges. He is Siebel and Microsoft Dynamics CRM certified.

Although SharedView is not supported on Vista 64-bit, it runs well (so far) on my Vista Ultimate 64-bit system as I've already demonstrated and lightly tested its capabilities.  For anyone who has had to use Netmeeting, GoToMeeting, or other similar tools and found them quirky, difficult, and/or expensive to use you should check out Microsoft SharedView for its simplicity, functionality, and ease of use. Without messing with Firewall settings, I installed, configured and invited a guest with ease.  I tested this with someone who should know how it works, (Thanks Dave McBride) but did not provide instructions.  The software did it all.  I had to copy and paste an invitation into e-mail, but in this case I used Live Messenger.  He clicked a link, downloaded the client, and connected to my session.  It was intuitive, since I had done many types of desktop sharing demonstrations in the past, so I could do whatever I wanted.  Of course, now I’m preparing to do several tutorials and help sessions that were never quite that easy before, especially for those who need to use the client.

I’ll update this with instructions and snapshots if needed.  Please, comment if you need help with this product since I am looking for both good and bad experiences to be sure I know to whom I can recommend its use.

Microsoft SharedView

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SharedView is similar to Windows Meeting Space, which is included in Windows Vista. However, Windows Meeting Space supports ad hoc meetings, application sharing, file transfer, and simple messaging within a network and works primarily inside the firewall, requiring IT involvement (on both sides) to bridge firewalls. Microsoft SharedView, on the contrary is designed for collaboration over the internet. It works through firewalls using HTTP if necessary. SharedView also runs on Windows XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later besides Windows Vista.

Getting Started with Microsoft SharedView...System Requirements

To get started with Microsoft SharedView, you must have the following:

• A computer with a 700 MHz processor or higher that meets the following requirements:
  •  Operating system : Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Windows Vista
  •  Memory: Minimum 256 MB of RAM (512 MB recommended)
  •  Hard disk: 10 MB of free hard disk space
  •  Display: Minimum 800 × 600 screen resolution (1024 × 768 recommended)
  •  Applications: DirectX 8.0 or higher installed on your computer. 
• Internet connection: Broadband Internet access, 300 kbs minimum. Slower connections may work, but the experience may not be optimal.
• A Windows Live ID if you want to start your own sessions (you do not need one to join someone else's session). If you do not already have a Windows Live ID or a Microsoft Passport account, get your Windows Live ID account now.

Supported Operating Systems

• Windows Vista 32 bit versions
• Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (32bit)
• Windows 2003 Server SP1 (32bit)

Unsupported Operating Systems

• Windows Vista 64 bit versions
• Windows XPSP2 64bit (x64)
• Windows 2003 Server SP1 64bit (x64)
• Windows 2000 SP4 (all sku’s)
• Windows Millenium
• Windows 98 (all editions)
• Windows 95 (all editions)